restaurant on a side street, I entered it.  There was but one other customer in the place, and he was seated on the far side of the counter, with a newspaper in front of him; and while I was ordering my breakfast I was vaguely aware that the newspaper had dropped, and that he was looking at me.  In the slight interval that elapsed before my brain could register his identity I experienced a distinct shock of resentment; a sense of the reintrusion of an antagonistic value at a moment when it was most unwelcome....

The man had risen and was coming around the counter.  He was Hermann Krebs.

“Paret!” I heard him say.

“You here?” I exclaimed.

He did not seem to notice the lack of cordiality in my tone.  He appeared so genuinely glad to see me again that I instantly became rather ashamed of my ill nature.

“Yes, I’m here—­in the legislature,” he informed me.

“A Solon!”

“Exactly.”  He smiled.  “And you?” he inquired.

“Oh, I’m only a spectator.  Down here for a day or two.”

He was still lanky, his clothes gave no evidence of an increased prosperity, but his complexion was good, his skin had cleared.  I was more than ever baked by a resolute good humour, a simplicity that was not innocence, a whimsical touch seemingly indicative of a state of mind that refused to take too seriously certain things on which I set store.  What right had he to be contented with life?

“Well, I too am only a spectator here,” he laughed.  “I’m neither fish, flesh nor fowl, nor good red herring.”

“You were going into the law, weren’t you?” I asked.  “I remember you said something about it that day we met at Beverly Farms.”

“Yes, I managed it, after all.  Then I went back home to Elkington to try to make a living.”

“But somehow I have never thought of you as being likely to develop political aspirations, Krebs,” I said.

“I should say not! he exclaimed.

“Yet here you are, launched upon a political career!  How did it happen?”

“Oh, I’m not worrying about the career,” he assured me.  “I got here by accident, and I’m afraid it won’t happen again in a hurry.  You see, the hands in those big mills we have in Elkington sprang a surprise on the machine, and the first thing I knew I was nominated for the legislature.  A committee came to my boarding-house and told me, and there was the deuce to pay, right off.  The Railroad politicians turned in and worked for the Democratic candidate, of course, and the Hutchinses, who own the mills, tried through emissaries to intimidate their operatives.”

“And then?” I asked.

“Well,—­I’m here,” he said.

“Wouldn’t you be accomplishing more,” I inquired, “if you hadn’t antagonized the Hutchinses?”

“It depends upon what you mean by accomplishment,” he answered, so mildly that I felt more rued than ever.

“Well, from what you say, I suppose you’re going in for reform, that these workmen up at Elkington are not satisfied with their conditions and imagine you can help to better them.  Now, provided the conditions are not as good as they might be, how are you going to improve them if you find yourself isolated here, as you say?”